Change how long permanently deleted items are kept for an Exchange Online mailbox

Exchange Online

Applies to: Exchange Online

Topic Last Modified: 2016-12-09

If you've permanently deleted an item in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web App, the item is moved to a folder (Recoverable Items > Deletions) and kept there for 14 days, by default. You can change how long items are kept, up to a maximum of 30 days.

Note:

You must use the Exchange Management Shell (PowerShell) to make the change. Unfortunately, you can't currently do this directly in the Outlook or OWA.

Need more details about using these commands? See the Exchange Management Shell Help topic Set-Mailbox.

Tip:

Need to keep deleted items for longer than 30 days? To do this, place the mailbox on In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold. This works because when a mailbox is placed on hold, deleted items are kept and retention settings for deleted items are ignored. See In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold.

Estimated time to complete: Assuming you've got PowerShell set up and connected to Exchange Online, this update is really quick—about 2 minutes. If you need to get PowerShell set up, add extra time for that.

If you want to place a mailbox on In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold so the retention limit is ignored, make sure the mailbox has an Exchange Online (Plan 2) user license.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Recipient Provisioning Permissions" section in the Recipients Permissions topic.

When a user permanently deletes a mailbox item (such as an email message, a contact, a calendar appointment, or a task) in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Web App, the item is moved to the Recoverable Items folder, and into a subfolder named Deletions.

A mailbox item is deleted and moved to the Recoverable Items folder when a user does one of the following:

Deletes an item from the Deleted Items folder

Empties the Deleted Items folder

Permanently deletes an item by selecting it and pressing Shift+Delete

How long deleted items are kept in the Deletions folder depends on the deleted item retention period that is set for the mailbox. An Exchange Online mailbox keeps deleted items for 14 days, by default. Use the Exchange Management Shell, as shown above, to change this setting, to increase the period up to a maximum of 30 days.

Users can recover, or purge, deleted items before the retention time for a deleted item expires. To do so, they use the Recover Deleted Items feature in Outlook or Office Outlook Web App. See the following "Recover deleted items" topics: for Outlook or for Outlook Web App.